Following the massive earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, a number of explosions and fires took place at the reactor buildings of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Japan declared a state of alert and reported leaks of radioactive material. Given the magnitude and the global dimension of the disaster, Japanese authorities and the international community are following the situation very closely. A series of sources provide the public with up-to-date information on the accident's possible impacts on Europe's environment as well as radiation measurements across Europe.

This European Environment Agency (EEA) report assesses the damage costs to health and the environment resulting from pollutants emitted from industrial facilities. It is based on the latest information, namely for 2009, publicly available through the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR, 2011) in line with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Aarhus Convention regarding access to environmental information.

The risk of exposure to new, emerging and re-emerging diseases,
to accidents and new pandemics, grows with increasing mobility
of people and goods, climate change and poverty. Vulnerable
Europeans could be severely affected.

The rationale for selection of pollutant and corresponding limit/target values for CSI 004 is given in the justification for indicator selection. Only urban and sub-urban background monitoring stations have been included in the calculations. Data for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey are not included due to the geographical coverage of the Urban Audit and/or lack of air quality data.

Cities are core cities following the Urban Audit definition (Eurostat, 2010). In most cases the delineation of the core city matches the urban built-up area. But in some cases the delineation also includes substantial areas outside the urban built-up areas (parts of the urban fringe and hinterland); in other cases, it includes only city centres

In May 2008 a helicopter flew over unexplored parts of the Amazon in Acre State in Brazil, near the country’s border with Peru. Onboard were officials from Funai, the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department, on a mission to prove the existence of unknown Amazonian tribes who have never been in contact with the outside world. The few aerial pictures Funai has released show startled and intrigued people and their huts but do not reveal any landmarks which could be used to identify the exact location.